Maui Cruz: Part Two — A Pocketful Of Sunshine’s Cloudy Days

Sep 9

By Mikael Jay Borres

All Cebuano/Tagalog/Hiligaynon quotes have been translated into English for clarity and length.

Trigger Warning: Child Abuse, Depression, Suicide

If Marianne “Maui” Cruz ever became a ghost who could haunt people, she would scare the bejesus out of her mom’s current boyfriend.

The boyfriend is, by all means, far from being crowned Mr. Congeniality. “There was one time when we were on our way to pick up my sister, and he asked me, ‘What do you guys want for dinner?’ Because my mom told him to buy us food because she was out on duty. And I said, ‘Let’s just do Chowking,’” Maui remembered. “And apparently, he thought I ignored him, so he slapped me in the car.”

Before the slap, Maui started to record their argument with her phone. “He was already being a dick” during the ride and before the slap, Maui said.

Maui showed the video to her mother, which begged a question that the latter had to answer: Would you still be with a man who hurt your child?

Maui got slapped in 2019. As of August 20, 2024, Maui’s mother is still with that boyfriend. She answered her daughter’s question.

It Was Never That Sunny

Maui was only eight years old when her parents separated due to, in part, their extramarital affairs. When one of them started cheating, the other parent took revenge by cheating as well. It was the marital version of mutually assured destruction.

The failure of her parents’ marriage, Maui suggests, may be correlated with her mother’s attachment to her current boyfriend. “My mom hates the thought of being alone so much that she would rather be with someone for the sake of being with someone,” said Maui. “I think that’s what happens when you’ve suffered [through] a bad marriage. She got cheated on, she was forced to raise three children on her own.”

To Maui, her mother being with that boyfriend is a retaliation to the inevitable, in which the three Cruz siblings would fly from their mother’s nest and pursue independent lives. “For the longest time, I’ve carried such intense hatred for that,” Maui said about her mother’s decision to be with her current boyfriend.

Maui cannot remember any memories of her childhood. Much of what she knows is from her relatives’ accounts, who told her of the abuse she faced from his father. “My tita (aunt) would notice that I’d have bruises around,” Maui said. “According to my relatives, they’d see me with bruises all over.”

When Maui’s parents separated in 2010, her mother brought Maui and her siblings out of Quezon City, where their father stayed, and to Iloilo. For 10 years, Maui and her siblings didn’t get to see her father. Over a decade, she asked herself why he hadn’t contacted her. She wondered if he was even still alive.

In 2020, Maui’s father travelled to Iloilo. He tried to annul his marriage with Maui’s mother. He then took the opportunity to reconnect with his children during his visit. When Maui’s mother found out about them making contact, Maui and her mother fought. Her mother took it as one of her lines being crossed. Maui blocked her father to cease the fighting.

“To be honest, I wasn’t feeling very [close] towards my dad,” said Maui. “Like there were no feelings of love because how can you love someone who left you for over 10, 11, 12 years? He’s someone who cheated on your mom. So, of course, there are going to be feelings of resentment. So it didn’t take much for me to block him, honestly.”

When The Storm Comes

After graduating high school from Assumption Iloilo in 2021, she first attended the University of San Agustin in the same year for college, studying to become a medical technician. She thinks she fell victim to the misconception that STEM-related courses are guarantees of financial and career success. She did want to become a doctor, specifically a pediatric surgeon. “Because I really like kids!” Maui exclaimed. “Even then, I was already ambitious!”

At San Agustin, she achieved high marks in her classes, making the solid first steps towards her goal. But Maui could never work out how to find new school friends since classes were held online. It was already difficult enough for Maui to forge genuine connections through virtual interactions. Coupled with that challenge was a mindset her school fostered, which stressed scholarly excellence over anything else.

“I didn’t know anyone because I was a late enrollee,” said Maui, “and since it was during the pandemic, I didn’t have the chance to make new friends because it was all just online. So I was kind of doing everything by myself, and I had no one to lean on in school. So that really made things so much worse for me.”

Her souring relationship with her mother grew more tumultuous. Her mother’s decision to stay with her boyfriend despite his disdainful behaviour became the root of the hostilities. Her mother’s choice was always in the back of Maui’s mind whenever the two fought. In every argument between the two, Maui would remind her mother that the latter chose someone else “over your own child. Not even blood.”

The lockdown shut her down, being inundated with thoughts that she was all alone in San Agustin and at home. Her class instructors began to wonder where Maui went. “I had fairly good grades. And then, one day, in the middle of the pandemic, I just stopped.

“It came to a point that I didn’t get out of bed. I had no good hygiene. Every single day, I'd watch episodes of Love Island and Too Hot To Handle – reality shows – because they were very low-maintenance. It’s either that or anime. Very low-maintenance. It doesn’t take a genius to figure [those shows] out.”

Maui would sleep, wake up, watch those low-maintenance shows, and repeat the cycle. Before she knew it, she stopped attending her classes. She lost her hold on the “concept of time.”

Maui found herself at a low point, with few places or people to find comfort. “Things started to get really bad at home, so I contacted him [Maui’s father] again… and I don’t know if it helped, but I was one desperate bitch!”

He flew to Iloilo again to meet with Maui and her older sister. It was the first time in years since the Cruz children saw their father. He made multiple attempts to reach out to them over the years, but their mother ensured his tries became failures.

When they did meet their father again, their father showed them pictures he had taken of himself during their birthdays. Each time Maui or one of her siblings celebrated their birthdays, their father would buy a cake and sing, by himself, “Happy Birthday.” They were parties of one, and the honorees never came. Maui and her sister cried hearing their father’s story.

Maui and her siblings kept the link between them and their father for the rest of 2021, receiving financial support from him for their academic needs.

By the time Maui contacted her father and met him again, she knew of the stories of abuse she experienced as a child. Why would she want to reconcile with her father? “I feel like it was just me being desperate for another parent at that time,” Maui said. “I always see kids around my age who have parents and feel sad.” She wanted that experience for herself. “It was like, ‘I don’t care anymore about what he did. I just want a dad.’”

A Tsunami In July

Amid her academic standing crumbling and her relationship with her mother deteriorating, she realized how deep her shutdown became. Maui then sought help from a school guidance counsellor. She memorializes the day by setting her phone passcode to the day she reached out.

When the guidance counsellor suggested to Maui that she might be experiencing depression, Maui first shrugged it off. “I was like, ‘Heh, No. No, not me!’” In response to the insinuation, she pushed others away and kept living out hermit-like days as she continued skipping school.

When many of her relatives started noticing her absences from school and asked her about her state of self, she confided in them about her reasons. “I don’t know what happened,” Maui told her relatives.

“I can say, I guess, that my home environment was a big [factor]. I guess that’s the reason why I became depressed because my relationship with my mom was not good. I didn’t like my school. Although I was getting good grades, I did not like my school. I felt alone. I just decided one day to stop.”

When Maui’s mother caught wind of Maui skipping school, the flaming animosity between them heated up. Her mother never sensed a clue that Maui had been cutting classes. She only found out when she asked Maui for her report card at the end of the school year. “‘You want my grades from the first semester? You know, the ones that were at least good?’” Maui joked.

Another fight broke out between Maui and her mother. Maui could feel the vivid moment of her mother projecting immense anger, telling Maui how “disappointed” she was with her. Maui then blurted out that she was in contact with her father. That’s how her mother found out.

Her mother retaliated. In a decision born out of bitterness, her mother refused to pay her San Agustin tuition for a month. Her decision panicked Maui, whose plan to transfer to another college came to a startling halt. No school she applied to would not admit her if she failed to submit her transcripts. She could only get her transcripts if she paid her remaining balance with San Agustin. In Maui's words: her mother “completely abandoned” her.

“She stopped talking to me,” said Maui when describing what that abandonment looked like. They would not communicate even when they shared the same bedroom. Maui felt it became “really hard to look her in the eye. It was like, ‘Why would you abandon me at such a crucial moment in my life?’”

Although Maui did work other odd jobs, sold off her old belongings, and saved up some of the money she received from her father, they were not enough to pay the school bill.

Maui did not have her mother’s support. She did not have a clear path towards going back to school. She was lost and stuck, and nothing was going right for her. It was a perfect storm. She put up a fight when she was trying to beat the odds against her, but when it seemed like the odds were beating her, all she could do was feel the defeat.

July 2022, the same month she and her mother fought, was nothing short of a catastrophe for Maui. For many days of that month, she would wake up at “4 a.m. just to cry.”

In July 2022, Maui attempted to take her own life.

“I had no money to pay for tuition, and my mom had given up on me,” Maui recalled. And it was like, ‘Where am I gonna go next? What am I gonna do?’”

She told herself that if she didn’t transfer to a school by her self-imposed deadline, she would end her life. If she failed to meet the deadline, she would send emails and letters to her loved ones, writing her goodbyes.

Three Siblings and A Separation

Although a middle child among three siblings, she found her place as the “ate” (older sister) leading the trio. Maui spent much of her teenage years parenting her siblings, especially when her mother could not be with them due to her demanding work as a doctor.

Her older sister, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, sometimes struggles to assume the responsibilities of being the eldest sibling because of her mental health condition. Maui protects her older sister, particularly from those who cannot or will not understand the difficulties faced by a young woman living with bipolar disorder.

“I remember being sent to the guidance counsellor’s office because I attempted to bully my older sister’s bullies when I was in Grade 6. Yeah, I was that type of sibling.”

Maui goes to her older sister whenever she seeks advice. “She’s extremely smart. I look up to her a lot,” said Maui when talking about her ate. “I would not be as politically aware if it weren't for my ate. My ate is my idol.”

With much fondness in her voice, Maui describes her younger brother as a gentle giant. “He would not hurt a fly. He’s so tall, he’s like 5’8, 5’9 maybe? He’s now that tall,” Maui said. “He’s very soft. Very, very soft.”

He comes to Maui for her comfort and insight, calling her whenever he feels troubled. During their calls, Maui reminds him of his worth and how she cares for him.

Her younger brother is also being teased at school for the differences between him and his classmates. “It’s not your fault that you were raised differently compared to other people,” Maui would tell her brother. “You might not have been able to find your people now, but you will in the future.”

When Maui was scrambling to pay for her tuition, her brother and sister offered help. “My siblings came up to me and said, ‘Ate, we saved for you.’ I think my brother saved about Php 1,000-2,000, and my sister saved between Php 7,000-10,000.” Her sister worked on other people’s assignments to earn money for Maui, while her brother saved from his allowance. “It made me cry,” said Maui.

Between two adults who have lost their love for each other and only gained the pain caused by that bitterness, three young people held onto each other.

We Can Make It Through The Rain

Maui’s oldest sister reached out to their father for help. He sent money right away after hearing about her younger sister’s situation. “God bless her soul!” Maui exclaimed, emphasizing the word “bless,” showing gratitude for her ate.

“So I was the one who took the money out [of the bank]. I was the one who, every single day, went to my old school. It was still the pandemic, but every single day, I went to my old school to badger them. Like, ‘Gimme my documents!’”

She then applied to the University of San Carlos (USC) to study Anthropology, an escape from her Medical Technician path. It was a last-minute decision after first choosing Sociology (a program the university froze) and Communication (her initial choice for college).

The process of transferring to USC is, for Maui, her biggest achievement. “I really found a way!” Maui told me in her native Hiligaynon. “I really looked for a way to enroll myself. Aside from the money my dad sent, I’d paint for people, I sold my old paintings, stuff like that, anything I could do to help pay.”

“And then when my mom found out, she was like, ‘Oh she did enroll herself.’ Something like that. And, ‘Oh, [her school’s] in Cebu. It was like that’s when she tried to reconcile with me.” The thought of Maui actually leaving her nest, the first of her three children to do so, saddened her mother.

Her mother sought to make amends with her middle child, albeit with much allusiveness. Her apology to Maui did not come in phrases like “I’m sorry.” But Maui understood what her mother was conveying when she would ask how Maui was and offer her food to eat. Slowly but surely, they began to talk again.

“I thought transferring to USC would make my problems disappear. It did not. I thought that all I needed was a new environment, but that wasn’t what I needed.”

She did not know her answer to the question, “Then what did you need?” All she could say was how she and her mother reconciled when Maui moved to Cebu. Her mother joined her for a week during the move.

Perhaps all Maui needed was not her mother specifically, but the force of familial comfort she never felt while transferring out of her old school. Her mother seeking resolution, as clandestine as her mission seemed, brought their relationship back to a place where the thorns did not have to be as sharp and scarring.

In a 2021 letter Maui penned to her mother for Father’s Day, Maui thanked her for also being her “father.”

She wrote about her mother having to shoulder the burden of balancing the roles of carer and breadwinner. A doctor by trade, Maui’s mother toils through the graveyard shift three times a week. The hospital where she works is a three-hour drive from their home, compelling her to sleep at the hospital instead of travelling back and forth. After work, she would take most of her days off to sleep. “Despite being a doctor, it's hard for her to raise three children alone.”

Her mother’s ordeal never escapes Maui’s mind and sometimes her view. She recalls staying with her family in Iloilo during the summer of 2023; it was when the USC administration increased tuition fees.

She walked in on her mother counting the money she had left, divvying the bills left in her wallet on her bed and allotting a portion for Maui. She walked out of the room, then went back and broke down in front of her mother. Maui did not want her mother to spend another dime.

Maui’s mother cried with her. She reassured Maui, saying, “It’s okay and don’t mind it. Just study.”

Maui's awareness and compassion for her single mother fueled a sense of duty to defend families like hers in the face of an ever-tightening financial squeeze. “I respect her the most. It's also the reason why I joined NDMOs (National Democratic Movement organizations). I’m very passionate about the No to TOFI (Tuition and Other Fee Increase) campaign. It affects me.”

Through several speeches during rallies and protests, online posts, and public statements with student media, she highlights the high costs of attending her alma mater. In an interview with Scire POSC, a student-led USC publication, she notes how students do not see significant improvements in the university’s facilities and services even when they have to pay what she calls “Redundant, Exorbitant, and Dubious” fees (also known as RED fees) and expensive tuition.

The awareness also brings another sense of pressure to Maui. It is a pressure she mostly places on herself. She dreads the possibility of being unable to give back to her mother. "I feel bad about this, but sometimes, I don’t want to answer my mom’s phone calls ‘cause then I'm reminded that she’s having a hard time in life, and then I get guilty for even being in Cebu and studying.”

Throughout our interview, even as she shares uncomfortable truths about the history of her relationship with her mother, Maui always follows up with the sentiment that they have overcome their differences. When asked what she thinks makes her fascinating, she included her mother.

“Honestly, I think it’s the fact that after what I have been through, I’m in school, doing activist work,” referring to her predicament during the pandemic, “or maybe, I find myself ‘interesting’ [because of] how much I love my mom despite our relationship because it's not the best, we did go through a lot of bumps,” Maui answered.

Maui is not searching for the perfect mother — such a search is never successful. But her mother has strived to be a good parent, and she continues to do so. The attempts may sometimes fall short, but the trying is what matters to Maui. “I don’t have the best relationship with my mother, but she tries.”

Knock On Wood, The Rain Might Go Away

In January 2023, months after the turmoil with her university education, Maui was diagnosed with depression. Her therapist mentioned that she should have sought help during that difficult time, but she had dismissed her lethargy and reclusive tendencies as mere laziness. It turned out that these were manifestations of her mental health struggles.

“How was the first time going to therapy?” I asked.

She remembers stepping into the therapist's office and thinking, “Oh, my God. This is it.”

But her nerves settled as she began talking to her doctor. She recounted the story of dropping out and its aftermath. Her therapist described her as “self-aware, more than normal,” noting that she understands her limits and acknowledges her mistakes. She became more emotional, crying while discussing her mother and brother with her doctor. “Going to therapy, it’s good. It opens up a lot of things.”

Her therapist also noted the potential of her having obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), primarily because of her habit of knocking on a surface “a specific number of times in a specific pattern.”

The knocking, Maui explained, “started when I was in high school. My friends taught me about the concept of ‘Knock on wood.’ Like when you think of something bad, you knock on wood. And for some reason, I took it to a whole other level. It was like I couldn’t stop.”

Maui bought a wooden cross-shaped block (not a Christian cross, as she clarified) to carry around and use for knocking on surfaces. Her friends and siblings know this habit and the block she uses. They refrain from disturbing her during her ritual, knowing she will start over if interrupted.

She often knocks before bedtime. Before sleeping, she starts thinking “really, really bad thoughts.” She worries about her fear of not getting into a good law school or passing the bar exam. “It’s really me doubting myself. Or like, ‘Oh, my God. What if my now-ex, then-boyfriend at the time broke up with me?’

“Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock,” she said with swiftness. “Or like, ‘What if my brother experienced this and then?’ It really became a habit.”

Anxiety crawls back into Maui’s psyche, chipping away her spirit with concerns of not seeing a respectable future for herself. She concludes that the instability of her family life formed a somewhat bleak outlook. “Being raised the way, I became more practical. I don’t wish or pray for love. It’s more of, ‘I need to survive.’ I am in survival mode.” Knocking is part of her way of surviving.

When first explaining her knocking routine, Maui asked if I wanted her to demonstrate the pattern. The pattern consists of three quick knocks, which she repeats until she feels she has knocked enough times.

“Go,” I said. Maui then started knocking on the cafe table where we sat in the now-closed Mabuhay Tower branch of Macao Imperial Tea. She knocked in rapid succession for 14 seconds.

She knocked 81 times, divided into three segments of 27 knocks each. Each set of 27 knocks consists of nine groups of three knocks. In between those sets are one-second pauses. Without much thought, she naturally followed her pattern.

“How many knocks was that?” I quizzed Maui after showing me the pattern.

“I don’t know,” Maui said. “But I knock until it’s right.”